Proper and on-going operation of many types of equipment and many types of processes require that such equipment and/or processes be operated in an environment whose parameters are maintained within certain values. Chief among such environmental conditions are those relating to humidity and to temperature, and can non-limitedly include operability dependable upon proper mechanical interactions, to chemical reactions such as those encountered in curing procedures, and to protective maintenance of crop and food items during shipping or storage.
Because of this importance of certain environmental conditions as correlated to certain requirements dependent upon articles affected, it is likewise important that such environmental conditions can be monitored so that any untoward change of required conditions can be rectified as soon as possible. Prior art devices employed for environment monitoring generally comprise networked systems that are spread throughout a building or complex and that feed ambient information to a central monitoring station where a designated person notes monitored information and thereafter contacts and dispatches appropriate personnel to a problem site. Thus, such networked systems generally do not address immediate notification of on-site personnel via an on-site alarm signal for immediate cognizance and correction of the environmental flaw. Other prior art devices that provide on-site alarm capabilities generally sense only conditions where an excess of a condition (e.g. high temperature, high humidity, etc.) exists, but provide no on-site alarm capabilities where sub-minimum conditions (e.g. unfavorably low temperature, humidity, etc.) are present, even though sub-minimal conditions may be as dangerous as beyond-maximum conditions.
In view of the above considerations wherein on-site alarms are not provided or are only triggered at one end of a spectrum of environmental dangers, it is apparent that a need is present for an on-site environment monitoring system where one or more on-site environment-condition sensors can provide environmental information immediately transferrable to on-site alarm signals if appropriate. Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide an on-site environment monitoring system with an on-site microprocessor programmable to reflect both upper and lower limits of acceptable selected environmental conditions and cause an on-site alarm signal where a condition exists that falls above a pre-programmed upper limit or below a pre-programmed lower limit.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an on-site environment monitoring system wherein the microprocessor correlatively stores alarm activation with occurrence time and sensed value of a condition causing such activation.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an on-site environment monitoring system wherein system activation and deactivation can be accomplished on-site.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent throughout the description thereof which now follows.